Description of the attraction
The Place de Ville, lying in front of the Paris City Hall, was formerly called Greve - this ominous name is familiar to everyone who has read Dumas' novels.
The name of the square comes from the French word greve, meaning sandy beach. Here, on the right bank of the Seine, was the river pier of Paris. But it was not the business scale that made this place famous.
In 1240, King Louis IX ordered the destruction of all copies of the Talmud in the country. On Greve Square, 20 carts of ancient handwritten books were publicly burned. And soon it was the turn of the people.
Public executions took place in the square for more than five centuries, from 1310 to 1830. A stationary gallows and a pillar were installed here. Commoners were hanged, the heads of aristocrats were chopped off, robbers were driven on the wheel, heretics and witches were burned. Executions invariably attracted a large number of onlookers - in those days it was a popular entertainment. In total, tens of thousands of people were deprived of their lives in Greve Square.
By the end of the 18th century, the spread of the ideas of humanism led to a general conviction that a less cruel method of capital punishment was needed, the same for all classes. In 1792, physician and member of the National Assembly, Joseph Guillotin, proposed the use of a mechanism with a falling heavy knife, known in many countries. In France, he immediately received the name of the guillotine.
On April 25, 1792, it was on Greve Square that a simple thief was executed by guillotine. Soon, however, the terrible device was transported to Revolution Square (now Concord), where most of the executions of that bloody era took place.
In 1803, the square was given its current name. It was there that the creation of the provisional government of the 1848 revolution was announced, the French Republic was proclaimed on September 4, 1870, and the Paris Commune of 1871.
Now it is a beautiful and very popular place among Parisians. Since 1982, the square has been turned into a pedestrian zone. In winter, an ice rink is poured here, in summer sand is poured onto a special surface so that you can play beach volleyball.
